1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and terminal for displaying a character capacity, and more particularly, to a method and terminal for allowing a user to enter a desired character, while simultaneously viewing a current character capacity.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Some conventional mobile communication terminals perform a message transmission function, utilizing technologies, such as, for example, Short message Service (SMS), Long Message Service (LMS), Multimedia Messaging System (MMS) and Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). Some of these terminals also perform other communication functions, such as a voice communication function or a multimedia communication function.
Under many circumstances, message transmission communication is a more preferable form of communication than voice communication, due to factors such as cost and the content to be communicated, for example. Thus, the usage of message services has rapidly increased recently.
When a user prepares a message, the length of the message (in terms of characters included in the message) may be limited by the message transmission technology being used, or by the terminal the user is using to send the message. Some conventional terminals display, while a user is entering a message, the remaining character capacity of the message. These terminals display the character capacity at an area of the terminal screen which is outside a message entry window (for example at an upper or lower part of the screen). In this case, to view the character capacity, the user must divert his view from the message entry window where the entered message is displayed to the area of the screen where the character capacity is displayed, which is inconvenient to the user.
FIG. 1 shows an example of a conventional screen which is displayed when a user is entering a message.
On the screen shown in FIG. 1, a message (“A.G”) is displayed in a message entry-window, and a character count (“3”) and a character capacity (“188”) is displayed in the top right-hand corner of the screen.
Since the character count display is distant from the message-entry window, and since a user typically focuses their attention on the message-entry window while entering a message, the user will typically be unaware of how close his entered message has come to the maximum character length.
In this regard, to view the displayed character count, the user must divert his gaze from the message entry-window to the top right-hand corner of the screen shown in FIG. 1. In doing so, typically the user momentarily stops entering the message. This causes the message entry process to take longer.